The Black Gang by Cyril McNeile (Sapper). Although the First World War is over, it seems that the hostilities are not, and when Captain Hugh &#x2018;Bulldog&#x2019; Drummond discovers that a stint of bribery and blackmail is undermining England&#x2019;s democratic tradition, he forms the Black Gang, bent on tracking down the perpetrators of such plots. They set a trap to lure the criminal mastermind behind these subversive attacks to England, and all is going to plan until Bulldog Drummond accepts an invitation to tea at the Ritz with a charming American clergyman and his dowdy daughter. Sapper was the pseudonym of Herman Cyril McNeile, whose father was Malcolm McNeile, a Captain in the Royal Navy and, at who was at the time, governor of the naval prison at Bodmin, the town where Herman was born. McNeile was educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1907. He went to France in 1914 when World War I broke out and he saw action at both the First and the Second Battle of Ypres where he displayed considerable bravery, was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in dispatches. His first known published work was a series of short war stories based on his own experiences, and published under the name 'Sapper' in the Daily Mail and in the magazine 'The War Illustrated'.